Google Glass advocate to developers: Seize the moment (w/ video)

(Phys.org) —Along with dancing elephants and magnificent acrobats, there's nothing that can draw an audience, especially curious developers, more than a New Paradigm. Computing machines that are reduced from fridge-sized boxes to computers that can fit on a desktop. Telephones without cables that can fit in the pocket and be used while you're walking. Still greater phones that give you Internet access, play music, and take pictures. And in 2013, the world awaits what Google positions as a Newer Paradigm, Google Glass. (Not to be mistakenly called GlassES, as the device is worn over one eye only.)

This month, as a service to all interested developers, Google posted a video so that everyone can see and hear what Developer Advocate Timothy Jordan had to say about Google Glass, when he spoke at the 2013 South by Southwest Interactive conference last month.

Jordan was there to talk up the Google Mirror API, which will help to build services for the Google Glass project. "It's about technology when you want it, and out of the way when you don't," said Jordan, which sums up his statements of support for why Google Glass is a new chapter for our experiences with information access, retrieval, and release.

He told the audience he had found it "weird" at one event, where audience members had "all these screens" up in the air, and he thought about how these people in the audience were so busy watching their little screens instead of the actual event.

Google is building a new paradigm, he said, where something will blend in, not compete, with your life. Google, he added, is giving you the technology you love, but not taking you "out of the moment."

Proceeding to getting under the hood, Jordan announced that he was talking to developers. He emphasized, though, that "we are not done. We can see more things before we release the API." He said as work continued, Google welcomed developer feedback.

As Jordan demonstrated, the user's Google Glass functions will include control with voice, hand and head gestures, and will enjoy capabilities of audio, transmitting and receiving messages, and recording video. Google is prepping Glass for a widespread consumer release at the end of this year.

Hopefully, developers who pursue the New Paradigm and run with it will be able to enjoy more than vapid promotionals of a moneyed leisure set of people recording memories of their hot air balloon rides and water-slide antics. Hopefully, promotionals will offer real-world uses by a more universal cross section of people who do other tasks.

Google Glass has medical potential for surgeons, who might use it during surgery to view scans or other images as a supplement to their direct visual field; international trade and relief workers may use it as instant language translators; travelers might use it to check bus, train, or airplane arrivals and departures. The list could go on and on.

Nonetheless, the promise of Google Glass keeping us in the moment has some doubters saying, no, wait a moment. First, there have been concerns over the logic of Google Glass being a liberator, when head or voice commands or touching a tiny touchpad attached to one arm of the headset, are still needed. They might argue that conventional smartphone taps are not that big a deal either. Second, there have been concerns about the logic of liberating users into the moment when other disconcerted people around the Google glass wearer may feel the person is half-listening, half-interested in what they are saying and doing, as the wearer is anticipating at any "moment" to look up and do something with the Google Glass. Last, there are those who express concern about eye safety.

Concerns have been voiced that a device in which the wearer views the display through only one eye may affect neural circuitry, and could lead to visual confusion and eyestrain, where the two eyes differ in focusing on one set distance versus another shifting distance.

In an interview in January this year, Babak Parviz, the head of the Google Glass project, told IEEE Spectrum that Google was well aware of the fact that some were voicing concern that smart glasses could have unpleasant side effects such as eyestrain and visual confusion.

In response, Parviz said that Google has taken the concerns seriously from the beginning of the project. "We've looked at this, and we've made sure the device is safe, visually and otherwise."

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10 comments

I'm all for new paradigms, but I don't see how this replaces anything. You'll still need your cell phone (for a keyboard, at least), and your tablet (for a full-res screen), and your lap top (for real file management). I can't wait for that moment in the airport when I see a well-heeled hipster gazing off cross-eyed at their Glass while texting on a cell phone while balancing an iPad on their lap with a latte. Oh, I forgot the smart watch telling them it's time to take the meds!

I can't believe people might actually start using this crap. A surgeon, okay... a fighter pilot okay... a fire fighter, okay... but Mr. Idiot crossing the street without looking both ways because he's checking baseball scores in his glasses? Earth's official IQ score will drop by 5 points once these hit the market.

We don't live in Star Trek.

(And, actually, this technology was a major problem in a Star Trek episode)

Now I'm confused. But it's still a bad idea for the real world.

Am I the only one who sees this as the blatant last push to completely dominate our minds?

First, the presenter is awfully uninspiring. The videos are quite intriguing. I wonder why he still reads his points from a notebook. But anyone who've watched the Outer Limits - Stream of Consciousness won't touch this. I still prefer knowledge in my brain. I now see the trend online, that actually knowing things is not that big deal, because anyone can peek in Wiki, and beat you to it. But in a real world, it's really annoying when younger people are searching answers to my questions on their phone, admit they don't know or can formulate answer. But maybe I'm just getting really old. Yeah, it's probably the latter. So get off my lawn, punks!

Looking off into space slightly cross-eyed has always been a popular way to feign idiocy. And an empty blank gaze is a sign of imminent unconsciousness or worse. I gather that these are the "paradigms" that they wish to unseat.

[robeph]No, there's a ton of clinically paranoid individuals out there, you're hardly unique. There is help for this condition, however.

I think it's pretty easy to see that these things are one step further in your face than cell phones. Go ahead, tell me cell phones aren't meant to control you in some way for advertising/selling. Now people will be wearing their cell phone screens in front of their eyes, every waking moment of their lives.

Sure... it's just for making your life more efficient, though. Sure... it's just to help you think you can super-task. Sure... you just got hit by a bus when you didn't look both ways while crossing the street. Yay for Google Glasses!

And they'll even display ads for funeral homes in the glasses of the family members of the recently deceased! OMG mobile tech is so efficient!

"O Augenblick verweile doch, du bist so schön!" (*1) ... and the Devil will get you. This is about opportunities, imagination and embracing new technology. This is a new bone - so lets see what we can use it for.... And l have some interesting ideas which I did not see listet yet. So the biggest risk seems to me not to size the opportunity. (*1) Frei nach Goethe/Faust

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